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Message: [QUOTE="dinosaurbbq, post: 1164856, member: 1333"] While I respect the effort here to make an argument, its not credible and there are two major problems with it. First, both teams sucked for that four years. We can all agree that SU absolutely sucked for 4 years before Marrone took over and it was the worst time in SU football history in most SU fans' lifetimes. Baylor was just as bad. Yes, Baylor won 15 games during that 4 years to our 10. I'm not going to put in the effort to look at strength of schedules here because 15 wins to 10 wins is largely insignificant. Both teams were horrible for those four years and in the bottom of college football. Quibbling over 15 versus 10 wins is not worth the effort. The glaring problem with your point is that Baylor sucked for a full on 15 years to SU's 4 years in hell. Trying to resurrect a program from 4 years of horrible performance that were pre-dated by a very successful 20 year stint at SU has got to be much, much easier than making a team that has sucked for 15 solid years relevant. There can be no argument that overcomes that major factor. Second, the four year averages you've listed above don't show Baylor to have been markedly better than SU. For Baylor, passing was better, rushing worse, offense marginally better, defense was worse than SU's. There certainly isn't enough there to lead anyone rational to think Baylor was a better situation than SU given the first overwhelming factor above. Third, there was no benefit to Briles that a previous offensive system had been successful through the air and marginally better overall than SU's offense. Briles was brought in because it was believed that he could install his offensive system, which is different from that which was there before. Did GMD benefit from the fact that Hackett's offense in Nassib, Sales and Lemon's senior years was decent? No, because he changed the offense and because those players were gone. Briles also changed the offense to a new system and brought in his own players (Griffin from Houston and new recruits) to run it. Fourth, you assert that Baylor presented a better situation for Briles when he took over than Marrone at SU because Briles brought Griffin with him from Houston, but that fact actually doesn't support your point. What that fact supports is that Briles brought more to the table to Baylor than Marrone brought to the table at SU. I don't think anyone would disagree with that. Briles brought an ingenious offensive system which he had used at previous stops along the way and honed to run perfectly and Briles brought a player with him in Griffin that would excel within that system. It doesn't mean Baylor was a better spot to start from. Fifth, Baylor being in Texas and the recruiting advantages Texas provides hadn't helped Baylor in the 15 years before he got there, so we also can't say that provided a benefit to Briles coming to the job versus what Marrone found at SU. It has since Briles took over provided him a great benefit in that Texas kids now want to go there because his offense is incredible and it is close to home. However, without his system being incredible, Baylor had not previously benefited from its location at all. [/QUOTE]

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